I’m sure I’m the only one (other than maybe Lance Storm or Mike Quackenbush) bugged by this inconsistency, but during the intro, they show their TV station in every country they highlight… except for Mexico and Japan, where they instead show their promotional partner.

TYRUS vs. ETHAN CARTER III- 5/10
Can we please not plug the fact that Tyrus is on G.L.O.W.- a show which portrays wrestling as a work? It’s not like he even had a major role in it. They did a lot of stalling early on. Total house-show stuff. Ethan is, of course, on his way out… so rather than using him to try to make someone new like, say Moose or Sami Callihan or Rohit Raju or whoever, or even do a fun, first time ever match with TNA World Heavyweight Champion Austin Aries… they have him put over TYRUS. Tyrus won with a chokeslam where he held on to the Goozle the whole time, even during the pin… which mean the referee shouldn’t have counted the pin because Tyrus was engaged in the illegal activity of (air-)choking his opponent.

JOSEPH PARK TALKS TO GRANDMA JENNY- he promises that Abyss isn’t coming out tonight and says that he’ll face Kongo Kong as Joseph tonight even though he knows he has no chance.

O.V.E CRAP- they were ripping up posters of Lashley and Eddie. Sami’s promo was fine, but the whole package here was completely f*cking atrocious because all of their supposedly artsy camera effects and shaking and crap gave me a migraine. We understand that you’re crazy by the fact that you shouted crazy words in a crazed manner. You don’t have to mess with the colors and use a grainy camera and shake the f*cking thing all the time and turn the screen upside down for random split seconds. Save that sh*t for your student film where I don’t have to see it.

JOSH & SONJAY FAIL TO GET ME HYPED UP FOR THE SHOW- This contained Sonjay beating you over the head with the Laurel Van Ness angle just in case you were too dumb to understand the implications of a “commitment ceremony to the Knockouts Title” while Josh wasted time with pointless self-deprecating humor, and gave a totally anemic plug about a mysterious returning star. He in no way tried to present this person as a big deal or even a surprise I should care about. He merely said that this person was from Buffalo (so I assume it’s got to be Braxton Sutter. Literally the only two wrestlers billed from Buffalo that I can think of are him and Mikey Whipwreck). Meanwhile the screen in the background that served no purpose other than to be there and look high tech was not helping my developing migraine.

EL HIJO DEL FANTASMA vs. BRAXTON SUTTER- 4.5/10
Yup. It’s Braxton Sutter. Well… that solves that mystery. What a suspenseful ten seconds that was. Why didn’t they just tell us who it was? They didn’t even give him an entrance or a graphic, which made him look like a total jobber.
Sonjay described this as “a return of sorts” for Braxton. Why is it “of sorts?” He was gone for a while and now he’s back. What complications are there that could possibly require that qualifier?
The story here was that Braxton was trying to cheat, which the announcers noted was uncharacteristic of him. They speculated that this might be about him being unhappy about not being booked for a while, or being happy that Allie hasn’t been around.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Braxton Sutter grabbed a mic and cut a promo. Apparently he and Allie aren’t together anymore. Because that’s definitely a great way to pay off a relationship that they spent months building up and was a major storyline plot for most of last year. He claimed that “Allie ruins lives!”… and we got no further explanation than that.
He then went into your typical heel rant about how he’s the best, as well as your typical “we’re trying to be more real, brother!” promo, talking about how he has been disrespected by management, no matter how many new groups come in. Then Brian Cage came out and laid him out with a Brainbuster. This doesn’t make Cage look impressive because Sutter just wrestled and lost, and it doesn’t make me care about Braxton Sutter because… well… he’s Braxton Sutter. He’s a good hand… and that’s really all he’ll ever be because he’s so f*cking bland. And this is ME saying this, and I love generic babyfaces.

Josh and Sonjay attempted to plug something called “All Wheels Wrestling.” I say “attempted” because they utterly failed to explain what it was. Here, in its entirety, is the worst plug in the history of wrestling:
Josh: Speaking of quick, I heard a rumor about perhaps the premier of All Wheels Wrestling?
Sonjay: Oh-ho-ho! All Wheels Wrestling. Yeah! Talk about speed and fast and racecars and lots of cool stuff.
Josh: Those of you that know your history you have an idea of what I’m talking about. Be on the lookout for that.

MATT SYDAL VIDEO PACKAGE- this felt like filler, because the real action was in the…

MATT SYDAL & TAIJI ISHIMORI BACKSTAGE SEGMENT- Fine
Ishimori interrupted an interview of Sydal’s to give him a scroll challenging him to put his Grand Championship up next week as well as Ishimori’s X-Division Title. Ishimori seemed like he was supposed to be a heel here and he called Sydal a douchebag, but Sydal did kind of come off as one.

JOSEPH PARK vs. KONGO KONG (w/Jimmy Jacobs)- no rating. bad segment.
Kongo Kong squashed Joseph. Then Jimmy Jacobs tried to get Joseph to let Abyss about by having Kongo Kong choke Joseph into unconsciousness. No one came out to save Joseph’s life.
The problem here is that everyone in this angle seems to be acting like Joseph can transform into Abyss at will, and that Abyss can’t come out unless Joseph lets him out, but that hasn’t been the case. It has been well-established that Joseph becomes Abyss when he bleeds, whether he wants to or not.

TREVOR LEE & CALEB KONLEY ARE TOTAL LOSER GOOFBALLS AT A HOTEL OR SOMETHING-
The masked dorks they beat up a few weeks ago showed up. The dialogue meant to remind us of this attack was interspersed with footage of said attack, which means this isn’t live... so who is filming it and why? The logical answer would be that Lee & Konley hired guys to do so, but if so, why would they send it in when it makes them look like total morons?
Then Konnan showed up. The masked dorks predictably turned out to be LAX in disguise. They tried to drown Lee & Konley in the pool. Mike Draztik has very scary, Eddie Kingston-esque sadistic evil face when he grins.

ALBERTO EL PATRON PROMO- very good

ROSEMARY vs. HANIA THE HUNTRESS- 2/10
Very short.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- decent
Rosemary cutting a promo saying she wants the title. Then Taya Valkyrie made her return. Josh Matthews ruined it by declaring this to be “a real life Game of Thrones.” You know… because Taya wears a crown. Idiot.
Taya cut a promo that was… okay. Her acting could have been better, but I’m not sure if some of this was her being over the top on purpose to mock Rosemary. Taya said lots of mean things about Rosemary. Then Taya backed down… so Rosemary did, too. What a sh*tty babyface. Then she turned her back on Taya, who beat her up and hit Rosemary with her finisher on the ramp. Taya’s evil laughing needs to stop. It’s really, really bad.

LAUREL VAN NESS/KNOCKOUTS TITLE COMMITMENT CEREMONY- bad.
KM was back to be the minister. Laurel was basically out here fishing for the other women to object to this union. We got a fun swerve when Braxton Sutter came out in a neck-brace, claiming that Cage’s brainbuster almost killed him, and I that moment he realized that leaving Laurel at the altar one year ago was a terrible mistake, but instead of taking him back like you would expect, Laurel shooed him away.
Laurel got very angry that none of the other women were coming out to object to this, and started screaming and raving about how this means that none of them care about the title… and while obviously this “marriage” is the non-legally binding act of a madwoman, she does kind of have a point that the others should object to her in essence trying to declare the title hers for life.
While Laurel was ranting, a random TNA crewmember slipped into the ring, took off her hat and jacket and revealed herself to be Allie, who then waited for Laurel to turn around so she could charge her and Allie beat Laurel up and sent her scurrying. The announcers once again pushed this as Allie “outsmarting” Laurel, saying that this whole thing was a “ruse” designed to lure any interlopers into a trap, and while Laurel’s insistence that they do the objection part and trying to get one of the other women to come out to in order to object does lend some credence to this theory, it didn’t feel that way because we never saw any real evidence that there was a trap. It’s not like once Allie attacked Laurel, three hired bodyguards ran down from the ramp to make the save from right by the ramp, where they were hiding so that they could get the drop on any woman who came down the ramp and attack them from behind. It seemed like Laurel was just trying to lure someone into a one-on-one fight, and thus Allie’s disguise here was a pointlessly complicated way of doing something that could have been done much more easily by just having Allie come down the ramp like a normal person.
Also, Sonjay Dutt was TERRIBLE during this, going back and forth from making fun of Laurel for doing this to chiding Josh for not taking it 100% seriously.

We learned about a bunch of new matches for Crossroads, including Allie vs. Laurel for the Knockouts Title, Lee & Konley vs. LAX for the tag titles, and Eddie & Lashley vs. O.V.E.

ARIES VS. IMPACT VIDEO PACKAGE- good hype for the title match.

EDDIE EDWARDS vs. SAMI CALLIHAN (w/O.V.E.)- 7.5/10
You should expect to see that Piledriver on the apron where Eddie’s leg clips the camera on the way down in TNA highlight packages for many years to come. That was only one of many spots in this match where Sami worked over Eddie’s neck. Eddie won a great match via roll-up, but Sami attacked him right afterwards. Lashley was… casually strolling through the interview set to make the save but got ambushed by the Crist Brothers (who had been ejected from ringside early on.
Meanwhile, back in the ring… I think something went wrong. Sami set a chair up on Eddie, unfolded, which looked really dumb because Eddie had to hold it in place… but instead of hitting the chair with the baseball bat, it looked for all the world like Sami just reared back and took a full-force swing that hit Eddie Edwards right in the head. If they were trying to do an injury angle, this was a good one. Too good, really, as there is no way Eddie should be allowed to wrestle next week.

This was a pretty middling and dull show from TNA aside from the main event. The Taya stuff was good, I guess, but the announcing brought it down. They also did a good job of building up to and hyping up Crossroads. That show will probably be my make-or-break point with TNA for now.

I’m sure I’m the only one (other than maybe Lance Storm or Mike Quackenbush) bugged by this inconsistency, but during the intro, they show their TV station in every country they highlight… except for Mexico and Japan, where they instead show their promotional partner.

Impact doesn't have TV in Japan or Mexico, only partnerships with promotions.

I’m sure I’m the only one (other than maybe Lance Storm or Mike Quackenbush) bugged by this inconsistency, but during the intro, they show their TV station in every country they highlight… except for Mexico and Japan, where they instead show their promotional partner.

Impact doesn't have TV in Japan or Mexico, only partnerships with promotions.

I get that. But it just kind of bugs me that there is no differentiation between the partnerships and the TV channels. I realize it's a nitpick, but, too be honest, I'd rather they did away with that whole thing in favor of a more traditional action-based intro video.